our blog

According to BusinessWeek computer programmers’ jobs in US are among those of highest risk of being outsourced. In 2006 there was only 396k of (various) computer programmers in US compared to 530k in year 2000. That’s change of (about) -25% in just 5 years.  It’s even worse for data entry clerks - they jobs fell by -35%! BUT, at the same time, statistics for demand of computer system designers and analytics (NOT programmers) are higher then ever.

Point taken I guess.

I’m sure you’ve heard already countless of times about outsourcing, flat word and all that… but the moment you read statistics like this it really hits you. Every single day you really ARE competing not just with an extra bunch of people on the market, but with (quite literally) hundreds of millions of skilled professionals out there - people probably equally smart as you, just will less opportunities (yet!) and with way way lower salary requirements than yours.

The only logic way to compete with them is to always keep one (or two?) step ahead - learn things they cannot learn (yet), work in professions they cannot do (yet). The question is - how long can  you keep that one-step-ahead distance? And what will happen when you cannot keep it anymore?

Today I’ve read an interesting blog entry from Ryan Carson in which he preach long-term outsourcing and building offshore teams rather than hiring freelancers on “fixed project” base.

As its usually the case with the blogs, what was even more interesting, was what various readers wrote as their comments to this post. Some were saying he shouldn’t trust his russian developers. Some other (UK freelancers) were saying that outsourcing his work to Russia was almost a national threat. Finally lots of people asked about communication issues etc. In short, as usual, everyone seems to be divided into those who fully agree and those who fully disagree.

I don’t want to comment on the fact that Ryan actually outsourced his work out of UK to some high quality Russian folks (although I think it was an excellent business decision), but I do want to add my bit on why hiring freelancers is not always a great idea.

Computer software and web 2.0 software especially is a complex thing. What more, its a thing that is constantly changing  - all the time. People tends to think that writing web software is like composing songs - its an act limited in time (an costs). You compose a song, then you are finished and you don’t have to go back t0 it. It’s done. Unfortunately, with today’s web applications it’s a different story - things CHANGE all the time. External APIs get updated, server-side libraries get updates, even the programming language versions progress and eventually expire (forcing you to update the  whole app). Building web applications is not like composing songs - it’s more like building house in a permanent storm. You do progress, and you can build something real - but you should be prepared for the never-ending stream of bug-fixing, updating, changing etc.

THAT is exactly the main reason why I think hiring freelancers isn’t the best way to build web business. Freelancers by the very definition of freelancing wants to get short-term jobs, contracts. They don’t want to stay with your company forever, and help you keep it all up and working. They want one-off job, and then they move to the next client. That’s why its millions time better to actually build a long-term team, to know that you have some people out there, someone who will work for you when you need them and not only when they need your money.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t actually matter if your team if off-site or in-house. What does matter that you have a team - and not just a bunch of freelancers. If you have money to spend on in-house team, or if you decided to try to build your team offshore - doesn’t really matter! (Although building offshore teams is a whole different story which I will comment on in a separated post quite soon).